Subtitles section Play video
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- Just press play, you mean?
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- [Voiceover] Yeah, go for it. Whoa!
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- Now, you may have seen a Ruben's tube before. That's basically a pipe with a bunch of holes
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in it, and you pump in a flammable gas, and light it on fire, so you basically create
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a row of Bunsen burners. What's really cool is to play some sounds into the tube, and
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you can actually set up standing waves. That is, there are areas, there are patterns of
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the vibration of the air where there's a lot of vibration in some parts, and not very much
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vibration in other parts. Now, that affects the flow rate of the gas inside that tube
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into the atmosphere, and so it affects the height of those flames. So basically, you
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can visualize the standing wave pattern. I'm currently in Denmark with a team of physics
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and chemistry demonstrators who have taken this experiment to the next level. They've
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actually created a two-dimensional Ruben's tube, a whole plane of Bunsen burners, effectively.
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How many holes in this tube?
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- 2,500
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- [Voiceover] 2,500 in this Pyro Board?
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- Yeah
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- [Voiceover] So we're gonna see 2,500 little flames. Yeah. So, do you want to light it
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up?
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- Yes, I really want to light it up.
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- [Voiceover] Why did you make this?
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- Because, we really liked the Ruben's tube, but then we thought, ah, when you put on more
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fire, then it always gets better. And, let’s just turn it down. And then we can just try
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to find a standing wave. So this is below the lowest standing wave. See that? It's really
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difficult to see
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- [Voiceover] So what are we seeing here?
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- It's pretty much like the standing wave on the Ruben's tube. It's just in this direction.
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This is the lowest frequency that makes a standing wave in this pulse.
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- [Voiceover] So this is like the fundamental.
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- It's the fundamental.
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- [Voiceover] Can you show me what happens when you vary the volume a little bit?
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- Yeah.
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- [Voiceover] Whoa! That was awesome. Okay, should we try to find another standing wave?
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- [Sune] Yes. You can see it. You can see it. You can hear it before you can see it.
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- [Voiceover] Whoa! It's weird. With the microphones, I can actually hear, like here, I'm in a node.
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Then here I'm in an anti-node. Here I'm in a node.
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- [Sune] Because you can measure the sound pressure?
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- [Voiceover] I can hear it. Like here is very much an anti-node.
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- [Sune] I never thought about that.
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- [Voiceover] This is a node, and you guys can hear it.
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- [Sune] That's true.
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- [Voiceover] It's incredible. The flames must be coming out in the anti-nodes.
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- The flames are coming up in the anti-nodes, yeah.
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- [Voiceover] And you can even hear it. That’s incredible.
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- Yeah It's nice that it can do that.
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- [Voiceover] That is awesome.
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- [Sune] We just learned something.
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- [Voiceover] What happens if we try to go higher frequency?
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- [Sune] Yeah. We have something. Oh, that's a good one.
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- [Voiceover] That is crazy. We're right in the anti-node.
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- [Sune] Is your ears okay?
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- [Voiceover] Oh, God!
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- My ears are hurting now.
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- [Voiceover] That was painful. Why don't we try to put something more pleasing to the
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ear through the speaker and see what happens.
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- I think that's a good idea.
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- [Voiceover] Let's put some music on there. You ready?
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- Go.
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- So, you go around Denmark showing kids all about physics?
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- We do. That's what we do.
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- You show them the Pyro Board?
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- We show them the Pyro Board, and we show them a whole lot of other stuff.
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- You guys are also on YouTube?
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- Yep, we have a YouTube channel. You can go to this link, right here.
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- Go check it out if you want to see more of what these guys are up to. It's awesome.
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- [Sune] It's great.
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- Ahoy. That is the actual Czech word for hello. I have made it to Olomouc in the Czech
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Republic, and this is partly thanks to support from Audible.com, the leading provider of
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audio books, with over 150,000 titles in all areas of literature, including fiction, non-fiction,
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and periodicals. Now, today I wanted to recommend a book, which is a little bit European, and
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it's called Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel. I love this book because it includes the actual
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letters written from Galileo's daughter to him during his life, and it really reveals
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it for free by going to audible.com/veritasium, or you can pick any other book of your choosing
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for a one month free trial. So I really want to thank Audible for supporting me, and allowing
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me to go and meet great scientists, and filmmakers, and lots of people all around the world. Also,
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I should note that I will be hosting Michio Kaku in Brisbane and Melbourne on June 5th
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and 6th. Links in the doobly-doo. I would love to see you there. Thank you so much for
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watching, and I will see you somewhere else in the world. Bye.